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Extended Length Courses
Extended length courses are a series of six to eight cconnected workshops that meet throughout a semester or school year. Experts from academic institutions, local organizations, and from within the MƒA Master Teacher community engage MƒA teachers in topics at the cutting edge of their content area and/or pedagogical practice.
Cultivating Resilience
Facilitators: MƒA Early Career Teacher Jamie Kubiak and MƒA Emeritus Teacher Anoopa Singh
WEDNESDAYS, SEP 16, DEC 9, FEB 10, MAY 12 ONLINE
INQUIRY, PRACTICE, AND LEADERSHIP + PLEASE NOTE: TEACHERS ARE ASKED TO BRING IN THEIR OWN COPIES OF ONWARD: CULTIVATING RESILIENCE IN EDUCATORS, AND CAN BE REIMBURSED THROUGH THE MƒA FLEX FUNDS PROGRAM.
Are you feeling overwhelmed by the demands of teaching in these turbulent times? Wondering how you’ll ever make it to those milestone years? Craving a better work-life balance? If you answered yes to any (or all) of these questions, you might be struggling with resilience. This year-long book club is for any teacher who has felt like giving up, needed a communal push to get their teaching/personal life in order, or struggled with how to sustain their health and wellbeing throughout the school year. The goal of this course is to build our resilience in a supportive space by reading and discussing Elena Aguilar’s book Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators. We will meet twice each semester for the duration of the school year, reading approximately one chapter per month and developing strategies and tools to help us make teaching a sustaining and rewarding career choice.
Jamie Kubiak is an MƒA Early Career Teacher and science teacher at Park East High School in Manhattan.
Anoopa Singh is an MƒA Emeritus Teacher and science teacher at the Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics in Manhattan.
Fostering Compassionate and Vulnerable Spaces
in the Classroom and Beyond p Facilitators: MƒA Master Teachers Katie Francis and Deborah Schaeffer
THURSDAYS, SEP 17, OCT 29, NOV 12, DEC 10, JAN 14, FEB 11, MAR 11, APR 8 ONLINE
INQUIRY, PRACTICE, AND LEADERSHIP
How might we nurture compassion and leverage vulnerability to foster braver spaces within our classrooms and our lives? In this year-long course, we will explore how cultivating compassion towards ourselves and others can help us to embrace vulnerability and create learning environments that encourage both teachers and students to take risks and be their most authentic selves. Given the current realities of the pandemic and the racial justice movements, we hope this work can provide a pathway for us to navigate the challenges of this moment and develop tools to help ourselves and our students process the big emotions associated with these experiences. We will start by drawing from the work of Dr. Brené Brown and reading excerpts from her book Daring Greatly. We will use the text to investigate how shame can trigger us and our students, and learn how to tap into our compassion and vulnerability to guide us through challenges and find a deeper sense of connection. As we begin applying what we have learned, we will use our sessions to reflect on how these practices impact our relationships with students and their capacity to be vulnerable. We will also discuss how these concepts apply to questions of equity and racial justice in education. Our ultimate goal is to support one another in our continued growth as we face hurdles that come our way and strive to create truly equitable learning spaces where students can thrive and develop resilience in the face of uncertainty.
Katie Francis is an MƒA Master Teacher and mathematics teacher at Curtis High School in Staten Island.
Deborah Schaeffer is an MƒA Master Teacher and science teacher at East Brooklyn Community School in Brooklyn.
How to Design Project-Based Learning Curriculum
Facilitators: MƒA Master Teacher John Derian and MƒA Early Career Teacher Cristina Rade
TUESDAYS, OCT 27, NOV 3, NOV 17, NOV 24, DEC 1, DEC 8 ONLINE
INQUIRY, PRACTICE, AND LEADERSHIP
Project-Based Learning (PBL) gives students the opportunity to learn by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects, helping them to find the “Why?” of their learning. It leads to deeper student engagement and a greater depth of learning as students solve problems in their own communities. PBL can be an excellent tool in a remote setting as it provides a template for authentic, place-based learning. This course is for teachers interested in developing or iterating on PBL curriculum in their mathematics or science courses. In this course, we will model and reflect on best practices for: embedding PBL curriculum with specific content and skills, using PBL to prepare for Regents exams, designing assessments, and how to scaffold and differentiate projects for all learners. These topics and more will be explored collaboratively and purposefully to inform teachers’ project designs. Teachers will walk away with a PBL unit to implement in their remote or hybrid class.
John Derian is an MƒA Master Teacher and science teacher at Brooklyn International High School in Brooklyn.
Cristina Rade is an MƒA Early Career Teacher and science teacher at Frank McCourt High School in Manhattan.
Facilitators: MƒA Master Teachers Marcelle Good, Alex Moyer, and Gabe Rosenberg, Ph.D.
TUESDAYS, SEP 15, OCT 13, NOV 10, DEC 8, JAN 12 ONLINE
MATHEMATICS
Will you be using the Illustrative Mathematics curriculum for Algebra I this year, or have you heard about it and are curious to learn more? Join us as we unpack the Illustrative Mathematics Algebra I curriculum, unit by unit, throughout the 2020-21 school year. Our goal will be to collectively study, adapt, and implement the curriculum, with an emphasis on adjustments for remote or blended instruction as well as strategies for managing unfinished teaching and learning from the spring 2020 semester. In each session, we will debrief what’s been happening in our classrooms, consider planning for upcoming lessons, and share resources, so that by the end of the course you will feel confident in your ability to navigate Illustrative Mathematics for Algebra I independently in the future.
Marcelle Good is an MƒA Master Teacher and mathematics teacher at Academy of Arts and Letters in Brooklyn.
Alex Moyer is an MƒA Master Teacher and mathematics teacher at Lower East Side Preparatory High School in Manhattan.
Gabe Rosenberg is an MƒA Master Teacher and mathematics teacher at Bard High School Early College in Manhattan.
Using Design Thinking to Tackle NYSSLS
Facilitators: MƒA Master Teachers Jessica Ross and Mallory Womer
TUESDAYS, SEP 22, OCT 20, NOV 17, DEC 22, FEB 9, MAR 9, APR 6, MAY 4
ONLINE
SCIENCE
How might we engage our students in meaningful, NYSSLS-aligned science instruction? In this extended length course, we will start with a deep dive into the new New York State Science Learning Standards (NYSSLS) and the pedagogical shifts required to meet them, such as phenomenon-based instruction, driving question boards, and 3D lesson planning. Armed with a stronger background knowledge of the new standards, we will use the design process to work together to solve challenges that arise as we implement the standards into our classrooms. In this year-long course, teachers will define problems as they relate to the roll-out of NYSSLS in your school, ideate solutions, test out their prototypes, and receive feedback from the group. All high school science teachers are welcome to attend.
Jessica Ross is an MƒA Master Teacher and science teacher at Midwood High School in Brooklyn.
Mallory Womer is an MƒA Master Teacher and science teacher at the Bronx High School of Science in the Bronx.
Where’s the Design in Universal Design for
Learning? p Facilitator: Kara Imm, Ph. D.
MONDAYS, SEP 21, OCT 5, OCT 19, NOV 2, NOV 16, NOV 30, DEC 14
ONLINE
INQUIRY, PRACTICE, AND LEADERSHIP + PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A SEVEN SESSION EXTENDED LENGTH COURSE, WITH AN OPTION TO MEET ONE-ON-ONE WITH KARA FOR FEEDBACK ON YOUR DESIGNS.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is, on the surface, a powerful framework for ensuring that we design instruction with all students in mind — particularly creating access for students with disabilities. Yet, there is little mention of starting with empathy, a central feature of design thinking, and the UDL framework is often reduced to a static checklist. In this course, we explore the intersection and tension between UDL, focusing on its origins and key principles, and Design Thinking, an iterative and human-centered process. Mindful of the ways in which children with disabilities and their families have been excluded from many aspects of remote learning, we will use this course to design specifically for them. That is, we will prototype and iterate new processes, interactions, and experiences for children with disabilities and their families. Collaboratively, we will embed design thinking into UDL in order to transform it from a static checklist into a powerful process that centers your most vulnerable students’ needs.
Dr. Kara Imm is a K-12 mathematics educator based in New York City. In her more than 20 year career, she has been a middle and high school math teacher, staff developer, leadership coach, and teacher education faculty. In her current role with Math in the City (City College, The City University of New York) she designs and leads site-based professional development for teacher teams and leaders, with the goal of developing inclusive math communities across the country and internationally. At MƒA, Kara has been invited to design and lead over 20 courses including design thinking, mathematical routines, models and modeling, developing a coaching practice, and early algebra. Kara has written several articles and books with and for teachers on the teaching and learning of mathematics. A proud graduate of Minneapolis Public Schools, Kara earned degrees from Stanford University and Bank Street College of Education. Her recent Ph.D. in Urban Education (The Graduate Center, The City University of New York) investigated the impact of mathematical modeling for high school girls of color who had experienced the gate-keeping effects of algebra.
